


part-time wonder

by Lake (beyond_belief)



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, Not Beta Read, Pining, Reincarnation, Sad Ending, Sex Magic, Sorry Not Sorry, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 08:34:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5778925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/pseuds/Lake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate has existed in some form or another for two thousand years. There's always another war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	part-time wonder

**Author's Note:**

> With most of my apologies to Joanne Harris and her short story "Wildfire in Manhattan", and some apologies to Neil Gaiman and American Gods. This is not the Nate-has-magic story you're probably looking for.

"If I'm going to ask you to be my platoon sergeant, there are some things I need to tell you," Nate says, stirring the straw in his glass of Pepsi first clockwise, then counterclockwise. A thread of apprehension curls high in his belly, bumping close to his lungs. It's never _easy_ , telling people. "Thanks for the soda, by the way."

Mike nods and sits down in the deck chair beside Nate's. They're in Mike's backyard, both of them in shorts and t-shirts. The sky is cloudless; the sun dipping low, threatening to set. It's warm on Nate's shoulders. 

"I doubt there's much you could say to surprise me," Mike says, the tone of his voice implying the joke. He's holding a beer and his wife is inside making dinner, and Nate can feel just how small and perfectly contained they are within the vastness of the universe. He takes a careful breath, pushing the apprehension down and away.

"Actually, it's easier if I show you." Nate sets the glass down on the patio table and turns in the chair so that he's close enough to touch. "Okay?"

Now Mike looks confused. "Sure, Nate."

Nate reaches out and lays his hand along the side of Mike's face, at the turn of his jaw, where stubble prickles against Nate's palm. Mike's eyes flutter shut immediately. His skin is as warm as the sunlight. 

Nate takes a breath and lets the bottom drop out of his mind, letting the images flow: his old self, his past lives, the pull to serve that reincarnates him every time. 

It's less than a minute before Nate draws his hand away, and Mike turns his face to follow it for a second before his eyes snap open. His gaze is unfocused. "Oh," he sighs. He rubs a hand over his eyes, then blinks slowly a few times. "But why?"

"There is always a war," Nate says softly, words in his mouth that he's said so many times before, "and Abandinus always in it."

"That sounds exhausting."

"It can be," Nate allows himself to say, taking up the cold glass once more. "It's what I'm good at, but I need someone to stand next to me. As the saying goes, it takes two, now that I don't get as many sacrifices as I used to." 

That part is only sort of a joke. Quickly, he adds, "If you don't want the job, it's all right, Mike." 

He knows that Mike can't say no, not now that Nate has showed him who and what he truly is, and that's the most unfair part of it all. 

"Have you really been alive that long?"

"Sometimes it's not really living. I'm best on the water." Nate stretches his legs out in front of him. He can feel the burn of power roll through him, squeezing his hips, blooming up his chest. He's due for a war. "Right now, though, I feel mostly human."

Or at least close enough to what he thinks being human feels like. It comes and goes. He adds, "I've done this before, and I can do it again. I just need someone to believe in me." 

Mike is nodding. His gaze is clearer now. "I understand."

*

Nate remembers a river that flowed with cold water clear as glass, bordered by sharp stones that seemed to glitter in a certain kind of light, and surrounded by fields of long grasses that rippled like waves. 

He remembers chill air, often damp. He remembers walking through the long grass, trailing his hand over the wide blades, gathering dew. He remembers Vatiacus, he who held Abandinus dearest and closest, who first carved Nate's Old Name into stone. The Roman fort was crude, often loud, and the joys were few and the sufferings many. But that was Roman Britain, and many there knew no different, for as soldiers most places they were sent were low on happiness and instead, full of mud and rain and maneuvers for lack of anything else to do. 

He remembers the bubbling spring inside the fort, and his blessing which kept it flowing, pure and clean, for the soldiers who had little more than misery most days. He runs through water, fast with the current, leaping with the fish, the spray kicked up sparkling like diamond in the sunlight.

*

The worst part of asking permission to share someone's energy is the inevitable attraction they end up feeling towards him. Nate feels guilty every time, even though he knows it's par for the course, so he tries to level with his companion beforehand. Some have been better at controlling it than others, knowing that it's not how they _really_ feel making it possible to push down, to lock away. That makes part of him feel better and part of him feel worse, because the old part of him craves it. 

Some of them he doesn't even try, just takes them to bed. He's been alive, more or less, for nearly two thousand years. Before he discovered he was good in a war, he slouched through America, purposeless, running through companions and discarding them. He's not proud of it, not now, but it was what it was. He wasn't Nate then.

Now, though, he does his best to keep at least some distance between him and the person he's asked to believe in him. Sex and love and all of it have lost almost all their shine, and Nate doesn't want his companion to want him anymore. He's gotten good at letting those he takes from down easy, gotten good at making them feel like it's okay that they feel the way they do towards him. It's always been easy for him to tell them it's no big deal, that he would never take advantage when he knows their attraction is part of keeping him alive. 

And thankfully here, in the desert of Kuwait, Mike's attraction towards him is muted and dulled, replaced - or maybe simply overrun - by his need to keep Nate in his sight nearly all of the time. 

That, Nate can deal with just fine.

What he's having a slightly harder time with is his own growing attraction towards the firm and solid presence that is always at his side, often close enough that they're touching, an arm or leg brushing. Nate could move that slight centimeter or two away, but he doesn't. He likes it too much, and it's been a long time since he's _wanted_ , in the way that makes his chest tight and his gaze stray to Mike more often than he would like. So he makes himself look away as they mumble the words to some ridiculous song Nate can't believe he knows any of the words to as they wait to step off, even though he can feel Mike's eyes on him like a weight.

He senses it when Person gets burned by the stove, flinching where he's sitting in Command with Mike's thigh pressed against his. Mike must feel him twitch, because he looks over slowly, so not to draw attention. When they're dismissed, Nate starts to head for the platoon's tent, saying, "Something happened," only to be intercepted by Colbert coming to find them.

"There's been a casualty, Sir. The stove underneath Reyes' coffeepot…" there's a tiny pause, as though Brad's looking for the exact word he wants to use, "...exploded. Corporal Person suffered some facial burns."

That explains the location of the pain Nate felt. Immediately, he pushes outward with his power, reaching for Ray.

"You get Medical on it, Sergeant?" Mike asks so that Nate doesn't have to. 

Colbert's stony expression doesn't flicker. "Of course, Gunny. They're forcing burn cream on him as we speak."

"Good," Nate says. He meets Brad's gaze briefly. "Keep an eye on him."

"Sir." Colbert strides off towards the medical tent. 

Nate looks at Mike. "Guess we'll have to write up something that sounds better than espresso," he says dryly, and the corner of Mike's mouth twitches. Their shoulders bump as they continue towards the platoon's tent to start the damage control, and Nate takes from it, just a little, and he can feel Person's pain start to ebb. 

*

In the Humvee, as they rattle across hard-packed dirt roads and bump through ditches, Nate lets Mike ask all the things he wants to ask as he drives. "So really, where do you fit in this whole… scheme of Gods?"

Nate smiles. "I'm very minor, really. Roman, brought to England and nurtured there, and then one man carried me to America. But he built me a good shrine, one that was merely buried after his death and not destroyed, and then I learned the other ways to stay alive." 

He leans forward to drop another caffeine tablet into his water bottle. It feels good to talk about it, a spark of something close to happiness amid the dark roll of unknown things to come. The man who'd brought him to America had been called Ailill, and he'd come as a slave to the Vikings who'd landed centuries before Columbus. 

The noise of the open Humvee is enough that Christeson and Stafford in the back can't hear what Nate and Mike talk about if they keep their voices low. "Rome to England," Mike says, slowly chewing a handful of Skittles. "Like, when the Roman Empire invaded Britain, fought what's-her-name and the tribes? Then?"

"Boudicca? Yes. She burned the fort that was home to the men who worshipped me, but once the rebellion was put down, they rebuilt." Nate scratches a spot of dried mud off the knee of his MOPP suit. "Time passed differently for me then."

"How so?"

Nate shrugs and sips the bitter coffee concoction. It's just short of being flat-out disgusting, but he's had worse things. "Time runs for me now basically like it does for you. But then things came in fits and starts. It was like - watching one episode of a television show, then missing one, then watching another. I didn't exist in this Aspect, not then." He gestures at the human form he still feels disconnected from sometimes. 

"When did you?"

He can't pinpoint it exactly. "Sometime around the Revolutionary War, I think," he gets out before the radio flickers to life and puts an end to frivolous conversation. 

*

"What would happen if you got hurt bad enough to kill a normal man?" Mike asks, as they dig their holes for the night.

"This body would die. I'd wake up in a new one."

Something pained flickers across Mike's face, lit up by all the artillery streaking across the sky tonight, and for a second Nate can smell not only Mike's Copenhagen but fear. He shakes his head and jams his shovel into the clay again. "It won't happen."

"Nate -"

"It won't happen, Mike. I've got you to believe in me, remember? And someone's got to keep all of these guys going." He smiles as he says it, trying to lighten the mood if only by a degree or two.

Mike glances around at tonight's encampment, and a distantly proud look slides over his face as he takes in the platoon bickering and bantering amongst themselves as they settle in for the night. "I guess," he offers finally, and Nate chuckles at that. 

He can barely remember his previous identities, his past lives. Most feel like a dream once they've passed, no matter how much being shot in the jungle in Vietnam had hurt at the time. He can recall a sharp, chilling pain, the blackness of blood on green leaves. The memory is like the sheen of oil on water; it's only been thirty-five years but Nate can't even remember the name he used then. 

None of it matters now, anyway.

*

Mike asks, "Are you happy like this?"

Nate thinks about it for a second before he answers. "There are a lot of different kinds of happiness. There are also a lot of different kinds of dead." 

He lifts his gaze skyward, where the Medevac choppers pass back and forth, a seemingly endless procession. He knows the parade isn't actually endless; there aren't enough humans in the world for that, much less souls in Iraq. But the air still stinks of sadness and pain, and underneath, the sharp sour scent of too many men pretending they're not equally dreading and excited about the possibility of killing someone.

This war is fucked, that's no secret anymore. He can feel it in his blood. _I just have to get everyone out alive._

Mike slides closer to press their shoulders together, and Nate's grateful. He's so tired, having to direct at least a measure of focus all the time to keeping everyone safe. He doesn't have to, it's not some sort of requirement to keep the humans he's associated with under his protection, but he wants to. He feels human enough right now that he doesn't think he could stand it if he didn't bring everyone home.

"Nate," Mike says softly, the name like a sigh. Then, as if he's reading Nate's mind, he asks, "Do you think it would be better, easier for you, if you told someone else in the platoon? Have some extra help, so to speak."

Nate watches the choppers for another second. "Who would you recommend?"

Mike spits out his wad of chew. "I'd recommend Colbert."

That's not a bad choice. Nate nods slowly, turning the idea over in his mind. 

"Except if you tell Colbert, you might as well tell Person, too," Mike adds. 

That's - acceptable. It's also the maximum number of people Nate can maintain any sort of energy link with, and it will lessen his dependence on Mike. That's not a bad thing for Mike, who sometimes looks just as tired as Nate feels. "Why didn't I think of this all before?" he asks, almost rhetorically, looking over at Mike with something close to a smile. 

Mike leans against him a little harder and Nate gets a whiff of wintergreen. "Wanted just me, all to yourself?" He drags the words out slowly, softly, teasing almost, and Nate thought he could no longer be shocked into silence but he's wrong. Mike turns towards him, flashes a lightning-quick smile, then strides off towards Team One's humvee. 

*

Telling Brad and Ray feels almost too easy, although Person looks a little shocked at being asked to be included in any conversation with Nate, Mike, and Brad, and has to be drawn in by a look and a crooked finger from Brad. Nate's slightly fascinated by this, but it's forgotten immediately in the half-sweet rush of sharing. 

"That's fucking amazing," Ray whispers, blinking as Nate withdraws. Nate can see it in him: blown pupils and shaky breath for a second until Ray gets himself back under control.

"Just a temporary thing, until we're done here," he assures them. He shivers against the sudden rush of energy; it sparks all the way down to his bones and through his groin and he has to swallow hard to be able to speak again. "I don't want to go home - I refuse to go home - with any less men than I started with. Help me keep everybody alive."

Brad's gaze is clear as he nods. "We understand, Sir."

*

Of course, things don't ever quite go the way Nate expects - the Fates always pushing the envelope of the unknown - and first the ricochet bullet hits Pappy in the foot, then shrapnel slices into Stafford's thigh, and Nate has to run into a firefight to direct all his teams through idiot turn maneuvers in the fucking dark. He knows there's noise, but everything seems to happen in silent slow-motion, muzzle flashes each seeming to last for long, hot seconds.

He has to push his power out in nearly every direction at once, but for all that it's tiring, Nate finally feels alive, _this_ is why he's here, why he has to do this. He gets everyone turned around and the platoon flees the kill zone, two klicks back, and herringbones off the road. 

He can heal enough of Stafford's wound quickly, from the inside out, that it doesn't seem too bad when Doc Bryan gets to their truck. Evan gets patched up and says he wants to stay, and when Doc says he's okay with it, Nate's not inclined to argue. 

Once he sees Pappy's foot, Nate knows it's fucked up beyond what he can get away with healing in the field, and he feels helpless as Pappy gets driven away on the hood of the evac victor. Godfather's voice echoes in his head, _You can't volunteer to go to war and then bitch about getting shot at._

Fuck that. This war is useless.

"You okay?" Mike says, coming up behind him to rest a hand on Nate's shoulder and murmur quickly in his ear. 

Nate nods. Now's not the time. "Rudy, you're team leader now. I know you're up for it," he says, looking Reyes in the eyes and keeping his voice calm, but firm. _It'll be fine,_ he projects. _We'll visit Pappy later._

"Roger that, sir."

Hours later, after the sun has started to come up, he and Mike are looking at the damage to the HQ humvee as Nate tries not to think about how much worse that ambush could have been. There's a ragged hole in the doorframe from a bullet, and Nate traces the path only to realize this bullet could have hit Mike if he'd been in the seat. 

Mike seems to catch what he's doing and reaches over briefly to runs his fingers over Nate's wrist before he grabs for the canister of dip on the dash. Nate shivers at the touch, wanting. But he can't. "Not now, Mike," he whispers, pulling his arm away slightly and going back to checking the vehicle.

Colbert swings by as Nate and Mike are sharing a packet of pretzels as they clean their weapons. "We got lucky, Sir," he says, after a moment of looking at them both like he's making sure Nate and Mike are both all right.

Nate nods. He pulls back the slide on his nine mil. "Don't I know it."

*

Baghdad is both better and worse. It feels safer, even though Nate knows it's not. Despite the people going about their daily tasks, the odd sights like the boy dragging the jet ski down the alley, gunfire still crackles. No one seems to flinch, so he knows there was gunfire long before Marines came to town. 

The tobacco company has a cement floor. He can see the relief on his men's faces when they realize they don't have to dig another hole, at least not tonight. 

"It's fucking hot," Mike mutters.

"Hard to get much breeze through concrete." Nate rolls his shoulders, trying to unstick his clothes from his skin. Mike grimaces. In the light here, the deep circles under his eyes look like knockout bruises, and dirt shadows his neck. Nate wants to put his mouth at the right angle there, maybe press his teeth to the muscle. 

He shakes the thought out of his head. Says, "It's nothing," at Mike's questioning look, but he thinks Mike probably knows better at this point.

*

At Babylon, Nate can feel the whisper of every god that ever passed through here. It warms him just as much as Mike walking alongside him. "This is a holy place," Nate murmurs to him as Ishmael talks about Alexander. "There have been many Gods here; old ones, strong, who drew power from the very earth they inhabited." 

Beneath it all, he can hear the murmur of the Old ones, never entirely settled beneath the earth, voices whispering in a language humans could never learn. A single word would send them straight into rapture, and enough humans in rapture could start a war, or end the world. 

One word could kill them, or raise them from the dead. Nate's never raised anyone from the dead, and he doesn't want to, so he avoids the language of the Gods.

Mike, ever quick with new questions, says, "What would happen if you ever visited where you came from?"

"Honestly? I'm not sure I'd feel anything." He shrugs slightly. "I guess - that's not really where I'm from anymore, if that makes sense? There'd probably be - maybe a rush of old memories. I'm guessing, though. It was a very long time ago. I've been a thousand places since then."

"You looked old there for a second when you said that," Mike murmurs.

"Gee, thanks," Nate laughs, and Mike chuckles. His shoulder brushes Nate's. 

"What's it feel like," Mike whispers, "when you're not human?"

Nate has to think about it to be able to put it into words. "You know those dreams that you're aware are dreams, even as you're in them, when you think 'I know this is a dream even though I'm still asleep'. But you don't wake up."

Mike nods. Ahead of them, Ishmael continues his tour, lifting a hand to gesture towards the basalt lion.

"Did you save me from getting canned?" Mike asks. He turns his head and spits. 

"I might have suggested that if you were getting fired, I should be relieved of command as well," Nate says, and Mike laughs at that. Nate grins back, his dry cheeks feeling like they're cracking as he does. 

Colbert catches up to them. "Quite the field trip, Sir," he says, and Nate smiles again. 

*

After what feels like forever, even though it's not, they get to go home. 

Mike sits next to him on the plane and falls asleep slumped against Nate, his mouth open, snoring softly. His hands are clean, relaxed against his thighs. One arm slides off his leg, coming to bump and then rest against Nate's.

It's the best Nate's felt in months. The air is cool, the stewardesses are pretty, and his glass of water is chilled and seemingly endless. No one is shouting or firing a weapon, and he can feel everyone - connected, content. He doesn't have to hold them quite so close anymore. 

When his eyes start to feel heavy, Nate lets himself fall asleep as well. 

*

They're the last two left in the platoon office. Nate's there under the pretense of packing up the few things that are his in the space, and Mike's lingering in a way that Nate's pretty sure means Mike wants to get him alone. He promised to give back after they got home, and now is as good a time as any, so Mike can go home flush with vitality, and not looking like he's still trying to catch up on sleep. So Mike can go home and fuck his wife. Nate knows that's the usual effect.

He doesn't want to let Mike go home.

Nate rolls open the desk drawer and pokes through it. "When I came back from Afghanistan, the Corps billed me nearly five hundred bucks for my rations, so I can only imagine how much they'd bill if I took any of these office supplies," he says to Mike.

Mike's mouth quirks in a smile, and he hitches one leg up to sit on the corner of Nate's desk, soon to be someone else's desk. He's changed into civilian clothes for some reason, a polo and worn jeans. The jeans are tight around his thigh where it's close to Nate's hand and the sleeves of the polo stretch around his biceps.

Nate wants and it hasn't gotten any easier. He looks at Mike and Mike looks back at him. Nate's not sure he can stop himself at this point and it doesn't really matter anymore now anyway - but he can't do it without asking. "Can I kiss you?"

MIke nods, still holding his gaze, and leans down. Nate slides his hand carefully around the back of Mike's neck and brings his mouth to Mike's, softly at first, then harder when Mike groans quietly into the kiss. Nate pulls back slightly, nips at Mike's bottom lip, then dives in again, this time letting the energy he's been borrowing from Mike for months flow back out of him and into Mike. 

Mike gasps and his hands clutch at Nate's arms. "It's okay," Nate breathes against Mike's cheek. "I know it feels weird."

Mike cups his jaw and kisses him again, and Nate lets him not just because he knows Mike can't control how he feels in this moment, but because he wants it just as much as he did when he first asked Mike to go to war with him. 

"Nate," Mike sighs, sliding his hand down Nate's neck to the collar of Nate's blouse, "I want -"

Nate pulls back despite every instinct that screams at him not to stop, taking in Mike's glazed eyes, the flush of his cheeks, the redness of his mouth making it clear he's just been kissed. He makes himself say, "You don't. It's okay. You can go home now, Mike."

Mike blinks slowly, and seems to come back to himself somewhat. "Are you really going to leave?"

"I used up a lot of me keeping everyone alive. If I go back again, like this, as this person… I can't say I'll bring everyone home again, and I can't - I couldn't live with that."

Mike nods and slips off the desk, straightening up. He looks down at Nate for a second more.

Nate forces himself to watch without blinking as Mike walks away.

*

The party slows down after a while, people sitting or standing together in groups, talking quietly. 

After almost everyone else has gone, Nate walks outside to stand on Mike's deck, aware that this is the same place he first told Mike what he was. Above, the sky looks the same; no shift in firmament there, even though Nate feels completely unmoored. 

"What are you out here thinking about?" Mike calls from behind him, and Nate turns slightly as he walks up. It's still strange, not feeling connected to him anymore, and Nate would be a liar if he said he didn't miss it. 

"Just looking at the stars," he says. 

"Yeah, anything different since the last time you looked?"

Nate has to laugh at that. "No."

Mike steps up next to him. "So what are you going to do now?"

"I'm not sure," Nate admits. "There's nothing I really _have_ to do. I could just… drift."

"Is that fulfilling?" Mike asks, drawing out each word.

Nate shakes his head, unable to stop himself from laughing. "Not so much anymore. I'm too human now to really be into losing my form in the ocean for more than a few days at a time. I _should_ be able to just let go of time and let it pass, but instead I start wondering what everyone I know is doing."

Mike smiles at that, but after a second, his brows draw together and a frown creeps across his face. "I'm sorry, Nate - I didn't even think about the fact that everyone you get to know is eventually gone."

"Part of being friends with humans," Nate replies quietly. He shrugs one shoulder and looks up at the stars again. "Maybe someday I'll be gone, too, when there's no one left to remember me."

"That's sad."

"That's how it works for us," Nate reminds him. 

"Still sad," Mike says, "I'll remember you," and he lets his fingers tangle with Nate's for a too-brief moment, skin hot and dry, and Nate feels that same unwanted heave of lust winding up through him again, this time mixed with sadness. 

"When you do, I don't want you to say goodbye," Mike whispers.

Nate doesn't have the words to reply, so he simply nods. They stand there looking up at the sky for a while, as Nate tries yet again to memorize the feel of Mike next to him.

When Mike takes his hand away, Nate says hoarsely, "You go ahead, I'll be back inside in a minute."

As Mike goes back into the house, Nate realizes Brad is standing in the shadows made by the fence and the overhang of the porch, with a beer bottle dangling from his fingertips. "Did you hear all of that?" Nate calls softly.

"Some, but not all." 

Brad doesn't move out of the shadows, so Nate walks into them. He leans against the side of the house and plucks the beer from Brad's fingers, finishes it off. "Are you alright?" he asks Brad.

"Fine, Sir, and you?"

Nate smiles at that. He lets himself lounge against the wall a little more, sees Brad's gaze track down his body and back up.

"Not tonight," Brad says after a long silence. "But I would, otherwise."

Nate smiles again.

*

He opens the door to find Brad and Ray standing there, in civvies, expectant looks on their faces.

"Come on," Brad says, gesturing, "you're not in the Corps anymore," and he holds the door open until Nate picks up his keys and goes out.

Nate's already sold his car, so Brad drives them to an off-base bar, a tiny place barely big enough for a dozen small tables and three booths along one wall. Ray heads for the one furthest back, and Nate follows, aware of Brad close behind him. 

They put him in the middle, then Brad goes to get them drinks, leaving Ray to press the side of his hand against Nate's knee underneath the table. "So how's the civilian life?" he asks.

"Boring," Nate says. "Yesterday I went swimming. That was it."

"We sort of thought you'd leave town." Ray looks at him pointedly, as though he knows what Nate's still stuck on. "Blow this joint, never look back, find some new adventure."

"It's less adventure than you might think," he says, knowing Ray will understand what he means. 

Brad returns with a tray holding a pitcher of beer and a dozen shot glasses brimming with whiskey. "I never actually asked this before," he says, "but can you get drunk?"

"You know, that used to be a thing, long ago. Tempt the local god into a human form with mead, loosen whatever inhibitions he or she might have left, hand over your daughters. Nine months later, a sudden lot of half-Gods." He accepts a full glass of beer.

Ray's eyes are wide in the dim light of the bar. "The lady Gods could get people pregnant?"

Nate chuckles and nods. "The half-Gods couldn't do much, though. Better a hunt or a harvest by a little, that was about it, and the generation that followed would have no powers at all."

"Bummer."

Brad sets a shot in front of Ray. "Drink and be merry," he says dryly, and Nate watches Ray down the shot without blinking.

He never quite noticed before how well they function as a pair at home, instead of just in the Humvee. He doesn't think anyone else would actually notice, but just the way they move around each other, as though one is always leaving a perfect amount of space for the other without ever touching. He felt it, of course; when he touched them in the desert to share what he was he could see it, a shining line between them, but there's always the awkward situation of not quite knowing if _they_ know, and not wanting to ask. Not being able to ask. 

Now he can tell they know. 

And they both look at him heavily, in a way that makes Nate's throat tighten up. Ray slides even closer to him in the booth, says, "Just so you know, you're coming home with us once we've finished all this alcohol here." 

He's close enough that his breath is hot on Nate's neck, and it's dark enough that they can hardly be seen. Nate could probably cloud things up, if he needed, but he's not too worried. Ray's hand slips over his thigh before he grabs another shot glass. He holds it up to toast, and Nate laughs and clinks his against Ray's. "I think there's something I owe you anyway," he says, as Brad watches them with a smile playing across his face. 

Brad drinks the least, and is the one to drive them back to Nate's apartment, because Nate's the only one out of the three of them who doesn't live on base. He's drunk enough that he has a little trouble getting the key in the lock, but that could also be the hand Brad's slipped into his pocket and is casually groping him with. "Don't - don't you think we should get inside?" Nate manages to ask, and gets the door open finally so they can all stumble in.

"Now we're inside," Brad replies, and spins Nate around. He has a second to catch Ray's smirk before Brad is kissing him. His mouth is hot and demanding. Then he slides around, behind Nate, mouthing wetly over Nate's neck as he moves.

"Tell me something," Brad says, breathing hot against Nate's ear. "You and Mike, did you…"

Nate shakes his head. "I - I wanted to," he confesses. It feels good to tell someone. Everything he feels for Mike is still so strong and the words slip right out of his mouth. "God, I wanted him enough for lifetimes. But it wasn't fair to Mike, and I - I love him enough not to do that to him."

Brad makes a soft noise. Sad. His teeth catch Nate's earlobe, gently.

Nate feels hands at his waist, unbuckling his belt and unzipping his fly. "You can pretend," Ray says, and kisses first Nate, then Brad, before he drops to his knees. 

Nate closes his eyes, groaning. He wants to pretend, yet part of him wants to remember this the way it's happening. Behind him, Brad presses closer. "It's okay," he breathes in Nate's ear. "Pretend this is what you want."

Nate sighs and tips his head back onto Brad's shoulder, thinking about Mike. How Mike's hands would be hot as they slide over Nate's thighs, like Ray is doing now. The thought makes him shake, but Brad's hands are there on his hips to hold him steady, gripping hard enough to bruise a normal human. 

Would Mike touch him as hard, if he were here? Would he press his teeth to the inside of Nate's thigh, then breathe hot along the underside of Nate's cock? Nate shudders, registers Brad nudging his feet apart so Person can rest his knees between them.

"Fuck this floor bullshit, do you have a goddamned bed?" Brad asks, jarring Nate from his thoughts. 

He's donated almost everything; he's not planning on staying. "There's still a mattress left."

"Good enough. Let's go, Ray."

The loss of contact is something Nate feels keenly, but it only lasts the few feet between the living room and the bedroom, where Ray drops onto the mattress and resumes sucking Nate's cock as Brad peels his shirt up and off. Then Brad thumbs at his nipples, making Nate arch his back in an attempt to get more of the touch, to feel _more_.

Brad nuzzles his neck and says, "Close your eyes, Nate, and pretend we're Mike. It's okay. We want you to." 

So Nate does.

*

_Keys are on the counter. If you could drop them in the lockbox that's in the lobby, I'd appreciate it._

_Thanks for everything. See you in another life._

_Semper Fi._

Nate leaves Brad and Ray sleeping naked and wrapped up in each other on the mattress in the gray light before dawn. The note he leaves on the refridgerator, held up with a random magnet that somehow survived the purge. Then he goes down to the empty beach and watches the sun start to rise. Gulls circle overhead, crying out as he waits for that pinkish-orange glimmer out on the horizon. At the first crack of brightest light, he wades out into the ocean and lets it pull him under until he's one with the current, leaping with the fish, the spray kicked up sparkling like diamond in the sunlight.


End file.
